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Saturday, January 10, 2009

Today, I decide to go back to Ubuntu again. Before, I've installed Ubuntu on VMWare on my Windows OS. However, that's not a good choice. I can not understand deeply about this OS if I can go back to Windows at anytime I want. So, I install it directly on my computer on another partition.

After installing, I found that I have to face to many other problems:
1. I have to find the solution to develop my .NET projects. Currently, I choose Mono and MonoDevelop to solve this. However, Mono currently does not support features in .NET 3.5. I will think about this carefully. Maybe, I will use my Windows to do that
2. Ubuntu does not support popular codec (same to RedHat). However, we can install its additional packages. You can use this command line to download and install necessary codec to play your video/music files.

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

3. Install package to type Vietnamese. I am using x-unikey. You can search on Internet to install it. However, I need to warn you that installing software in Linux system is not easy for newbie. Most of them require you compile and install from source code. So, to prevent issues from compiling, I recommend you to run this command to download all necessary packages for compilation:

4. I usually work remotely from home at night. So, I need to install a VPN client on my Ubuntu to connect to VPN of my company. I choose network-manager-vpnc for this. To install it, please use below command:

6. Install messengers/skype for communication:
Pidgin is an package available in Ubuntu. You can use this to chat with MSN, Yahoo Messenger, ... However, it does not support us advanced features like: webcam, voice conf, ...

+ Skype is a necessary tool for voice conference. You can download skype from:
http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-linux-ubuntu
Double click on downloaded file to install.
+ MSN: you can use aMSN or kMess. To install them, please download the package from this link:
http://www.amsn-project.net/
http://www.kmess.org/
Note: the package file of aMSN is in autopackage format. To run this type of package file, please read this link: http://www.autopackage.org/docs/howto-install/

7. Capture video on Ubuntu: I usually capture screen as video for demo. So, I have to find a screen video capturing software. In the past, I used Wink on Windows. This program allows us to capture screen as video and export to swf file. I love it. Fortunately, this software has a version to run on Linux system. To install it to Ubuntu, use this command:

sudo apt-get install wink

To run it, open terminal and type: wink. However, you can create an shortcut on desktop to run it for more convenient
To create shortcuts on desktop in Ubuntu: using Launcher.
See this video to understand how to do this.YouTube - How to Create Shortcuts in Ubuntu

You can find more software for video capturing on this link:Linux Video capture software
8. I am a fan of Total Commander. This software helps me to copy files/folder faster than File Explore in windows. I find an alternative solution for this: gnome-commander. To get it, use this command to download and install:

sudo apt-get install gnome-commander

9. Mind map tools: Mind map is tool that I usually use in brainstorming and taking note / ideas. In Ubuntu, I use freemind to do this. To install freemind, use this command to install

sudo apt-get install freemind

10. Gantt chart tool: I often use Gantt chart to draw and show planning for my teams. So, I need a tool to do that on Ubuntu. Currently, I am using GanttChart. You can get it here:
http://www.ganttproject.biz/download.php
You only need to download the package for linux (all-dept) to your computer and double click. Ubuntu will do the rest.

I will update this article if I found more cool things in Ubuntu.
Thanks for reading!